Stars & Stripes (Cut & Run 6)

“Then no. Let’s go play!”

Zane couldn’t help but laugh as he obediently carried her to the stairs. So much for Ty’s ability to inspire undying devotion in every creature he encountered.

Zane sat on the front steps, eyes unseeing, thinking of Ty and worrying. The screen door behind him creaked and shut with a snap, and heels on the wooden planks approached.

From somewhere in the distance, a tiger roared.

Zane stood to stare into the night, shivering at the sound.

“Oh my,” his mother whispered.

Zane tore his eyes from the moonlit landscape to look at her. She seemed nervous. Why had she come out here? He could count on one hand the number of heart-to-hearts they’d shared over the years, and before every one, she’d looked like that.

“That’s an unpleasant sound.”

Zane nodded. “It’s because the roar hits a frequency so low we can’t hear it. It’s called infrasound. Causes a sense of terror. A roaring tiger can actually paralyze with fear.”

“How do you know that, Zane?”

“Ty told me.”

She sighed and looked out over the darkened vista of the ranch. Zane studied her profile. “Was it true, what you said?” she asked finally. “Are you going to ask him to marry you?”

“It’s true. I think.”

She swallowed hard. “I don’t know that I can live with it, Zane.”

Zane stared at her, chest tightening. The tiger roared again, and he tore his eyes away from her to look into the darkness. They had secured all the animals, locking the horses safely away in the barns and putting all the hands to work at wrangling in the other livestock. They were still exposed in pens, but they were closer to the house. His spine tingled as the tiger continued to roar. “He’s getting closer.”

“It’s quite unsettling. What’s being done about it?”

“They’ve got animal control people coming from Austin to hunt him. So far, the locals aren’t having any luck. Probably because they’re still looking way out near the preserve.”

“We should call them and inform them he’s come this way.”

“Annie’s on it. She thinks he followed us here. That he tracked Ty’s scent here.”

“Goodness.”

Zane nodded. Of course the tiger would track Ty across miles and miles of desert. It was Ty. He attracted death and disaster and undying loyalty like nobody else.

“Did Mr. Grady truly save Annabelle’s life?”

Zane nodded. “And mine. Many times over.”

Beverly sighed. “Desperate times call for unusual allies,” she said. She glanced at him. “I phoned the hospital and explained the situation to them. They said you were welcome to stay with him until he wakes.”

Zane whipped his head around. “Really?”

She nodded, though she didn’t look pleased with herself. Zane lunged toward her and hugged her, picking her up off the ground. She gasped and made a gurgling noise, and when Zane set her down, she put a hand to her hair. “My goodness, Zane.”

He took her by her shoulders. “Thank you!”

He hopped off the porch and ran to his truck, leaving her looking bewildered.

Hours later, Zane was sitting by Ty’s bed. Ty had shown signs of waking, but after a night of lying in the hospital as Zane paced beside him, he was still unconscious.

They had run all kinds of tests and discovered exactly what type of dart had been used. They’d given Ty the appropriate human antidote, and Zane had set the local law enforcement on a hunt for any of the same that were missing from area vets.

Then he’d called their boss, Dan McCoy, who’d been supremely pissed to learn that Ty was unconscious in Texas and not in DC doing whatever lie he’d told to get out of work.

They’d done all they could for Ty, and though the doctors seemed concerned that he was still unconscious after receiving the antidote, Zane kept telling himself that with the way Ty reacted to medications, he merely needed to sleep it off. The antidote had made him restless briefly, but it hadn’t woken him.

Zane found his eyes drifting shut and his head drooping. He jerked awake and looked around, surprised.

“Zane.”

Zane surged forward, kneeling on the edge of the bed to look down at Ty, but Ty’s eyes were closed and he wasn’t moving. There was no indication that he’d spoken at all.

Zane suspected he was beginning to imagine things. “Baby?”

Ty’s eyes fluttered open for the briefest of seconds before closing again.

“I know you’re in there,” Zane whispered. He leaned closer, brushing his lips against Ty’s cheek, then stretched out next to Ty and laid his head down. He stared at Ty’s profile, willing him to move, praying to see another flutter of his eyelashes.

Ty finally parted his lips, taking in a deep breath. He said Zane’s name, a mere puff of air. Zane pushed up and looked down at him, brushing his hand over Ty’s face and then sliding his finger over Ty’s lower lip, just like Ty did to him when he was asleep. Ty’s eyes opened again, staring past Zane at the ceiling.

“Ty?”

“Did we get hit?”

“No, Ty, no. You aren’t there. You’re here with me. You’re safe.”

Ty reached for him, gripping him with alarming strength. His eyes closed, and he started speaking in Farsi.

“What? Ty, I don’t understand.”

Ty opened his eyes to look up into Zane’s. He spoke again, sounding desperate and almost scared.

Zane had heard his lover speaking Farsi before, oftentimes in his sleep. But never in a waking dream, never while Ty was looking into his eyes and trying to communicate with him. He licked his lips and reached to the bedside table for Ty’s phone. He wasn’t too proud to call for help.

Only after Nick O’Flaherty answered, sounding sleepy and sullen, did Zane realize it was the middle of the night. He winced, but he was too worried to apologize.

“It’s Garrett, I need your help.”

“Yeah, what’s wrong?”

“Ty’s speaking in Farsi and I need you to translate.”

“What?”

“Just . . . I’ll explain later, I’m afraid he’s going to fall asleep again.” Zane pushed the speaker button and held the phone out.

“You people get into the weirdest trouble,” Nick said.

“What’s he saying?”

Nick was silent as Ty mumbled. After a few moments, he said, “Well first of all, that’s not Farsi. It’s Dari.”